Thread

1. aliasxneo · 1791145670 · focus · HN ↗

   I lived in a smaller rural town near a Google datacenter. During my career there I had routinely come across some outlandish accusations made about our water/power usage from the locals. But for obvious reasons I could never dispute them. I remember we hired a local who'd grown up in the town and he was "really surprised" when he started to see what we were doing to remain efficient.

   The current data center craze just feels like the same thing but on a bigger scale.

   1. cogman10 · 1791149243 · focus · HN ↗

      Did your datacenter consume 9GW?

      I get it, a lot of the older data centers consumed relatively little power. More than nothing but manageable like 1 or 2MW.

      The reason for the "craze" is that the AI datacenters being built are monstrosities that consume way more power, an order of magnitude or more. And a lot of them are going up.

      1. lokar · 1791154406 · focus · HN ↗

         There were certainly 1GW DCs in the US 10+ years ago.

         1. cogman10 · 1791154882 · focus · HN ↗

            Do you have any in mind? How many?

            Given the current power consumption of states, I find it hard to believe.

            1. lokar · 1791155010 · focus · HN ↗

               I remember one in the Midwest was growing past that.

               Even for smaller sites, 1-2 MW would have been very small.

               1. epistasis · 1791159044 · focus · HN ↗

                  1-2MW is like one or two rows of older non-GPU machines, it can't be called a DC.

                  1. kube-system · 1791169994 · focus · HN ↗

                     That's what many data centers look like for a mid/large non-tech company that in-houses their datacenter operations. They're often otherwise a "real" datacenter with UPS, backup generators, multiple tier-1 carriers, chillers, raised floors /w hot/cold aisles, etc.

                     You see it less now since the shift to the cloud, but in the 00s this stuff was everywhere.

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